Apple Announces Metal for OS X El Capitan

[MacRumors]

Apple today announced a boost to performance coming to users with OS X El Capitan in the form of Metal, previously available only for iOS. The company promises the inclusion of Apple's breakthrough graphics technology into El Capitan will boost system-wide performance and battery life while simultaneously allowing games and graphics-intensive apps to "tap into the full power" of Mac graphics processors.

"OS X delivers unparalleled integration between Mac hardware, iOS devices, apps and online services, and has helped Mac sales outpace the PC industry every year for the last decade," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "Customers loved last year's landmark OS X Yosemite release and made it the fastest-adopted PC operating system ever. With El Capitan, we're further refining the Mac experience with enhancements to window management, Spotlight and built-in apps, and improving performance so everyday activities -- from launching apps to accessing email -- are faster and more responsive."

Showcasing Epic's forthcoming game Fortnite, a few developers from the well-known game studio showcased how the graphics engine will be perfect for high performance games, combining the computing power of OpenCL and graphics power of OpenGL into new API that does both. With Metal, Apple machines will be able to accelerate Core Animation and Core Graphics, boosting system-level rendering by up to 50 percent, and efficiency by up to 40 percent. Specifically for higher-end games, however, Metal will take full advantage of a Mac's CPU and GPU, delivering "up to ten times faster draw cell performance," for a richer gaming experience.

Apple also noted that when working with Adobe, the developers were able to deliver up to an 8x improvement in rendering when using After Effects. Other than Epic and Adobe, companies like Blizzard, Feral, Foundry, Autodesk, and Aspyr were all mentioned in today's keynote as future adopters of Metal.

Article Link: Apple Announces Metal for OS X El Capitan

 

[Meister]

Anything that boosts battery is fine with me.

 

[chrono1081]

Nice to see The Foundry has adopted it. Maybe a metal powered Mari is in the works

 

[menano]

I can't wait to see how render will perform on my nMP!

 

[Jmausmuc]

Almost useless. With the slow integrated graphics cards most macs come with this isn't gonna do much.

 

[skaeroastro]

So have OpenGL and OpenCL met their matches? We'll see.
This is kind of like DirectX for OS X, so hopefully pro software/AAA game developers will bring more of their software to the Mac

 

[menano]

I doubt Adobe would be in on it if it were useless

 

[Tapdawg]

Almost useless. With the slow integrated graphics cards most macs come with this isn't gonna do much.

I see it as a really big step. I'm sure someone smarter than me can explain it in detail, but adding metal to OSX is like making the graphic cards on the mac similar to the graphics card in an Xbox/Playstation. Because Apple controls the whole system they can get maximum performance and quality out of the dedicated graphics card.

 

[jblagden]

Almost useless. With the slow integrated graphics cards most macs come with this isn't gonna do much.

The integrated graphics probably aren't much different than those in either an A7 processor or an A8 processor. It might help a little. Though, external really is the way to go for graphics.

 

[Richdmoore]

It will interesting to find out if only certain macs will have metal support, I can see this as creating a need to drop some mac models as well.

 

[dollystereo]

Maybe we will have Metal Gear for the Mac!

 

[ParanoidDroid]

Wow! This is my personal highlight this year! Did Apple just kill DirectX?

Unreal Engine (Epic Games), Modo (The Foundry) and Adobe CC will be running on Metal, and that's just the beginning! Last year I posted a question what if Metal ran on OS X... and got mixed negative replies. This year it's real.

Think about it again: for some gamers like me, the only reason we still keep a Windows PC alive is because of games. Now, with the native Metal support and major game engine developers like Epic Games on board, Macs will soon turn into serious gaming machines, running beautiful games natively on the best OS, OS X!

Gamers won't be exclusively tied to Windows anymore! That's truly epic.

 

[chrono1081]

I hate the name El Capitan. It's too cumbersome to say and I think the name annoys me so much because in my photography days thats all people would ever take a picture of.

 

[MandiMac]

Wow! This is my personal highlight this year! Did Apple just killed DirectX?

Unreal Engine, Modo and Adobe CC running on Metal, that's just the beginning! Last year I posted about what if Metal ran in OS X... and got mixed negative replies. This year it's real.

Think about it again: for some like me the only reason we still keep a Windows PC is because of games. Now, with native Metal support and Epic Games on board Macs will turn into serious gaming machines, running beautiful games natively in the best OS, OS X!

Gamers won't be exclusively tied to Windows! That's truly epic.

Don't forget that Blizzard and Aspyr are on board!

 

[kaellar]

Everyone wanted this since AMD introduced their Mante. But assuming OpenGL Vulkan is coming in future, is Metal for Mac that good news? Instead of implementing something that most of developers will use and will be able to port to any platform including OS X easily (Vulkan), Apple went with something that some to many developers might not even consider as an option due to porting difficulties.

 

[MandiMac]

Everyone wanted this since AMD introduced their Mante. But assuming OpenGL Vulkan is coming in future, is Metal for Mac that good news? Instead of implementing something that most of developers will use and will be able to port to any platform including OS X easily (Vulkan), Apple went with something that some to many developers might not even consider as an option due to porting difficulties.

I don't think it would be a massive problem. Remember that they already have some big companies on board (Aspyr, Epic and Blizzard to name them), and it's no coincidence that Apple just made the full switch over to AMD discrete graphics in their new hardware ... I expect small wonders from the next-gen retina iMac

 

[kaellar]

I don't think it would be a massive problem. Remember that they already have some big companies on board (Aspyr, Epic and Blizzard to name them), and it's no coincidence that Apple just made the full switch over to AMD discrete graphics in their new hardware ... I expect small wonders from the next-gen retina iMac

like not being too hot and throttling bag of troubles? yeah, would be nice indeed

 

[pscl]

does this mean serious gaming is coming to osx?

 

[kwokaaron]

Is Metal implemented into El Capitan's transitions and etc. as well? From what I've read on Apple's iOS 9 page, it seems to utilize Metal for this in iOS 9.

"The apps in iOS 9 now take advantage of Metal, making more efficient use of the CPU and GPU to deliver faster scrolling, smoother animation, and better overall performance. Email, messages, web pages, and PDFs render faster. And multitasking features on iPad feel fluid and natural."

 

[MandiMac]

like not being too hot and throttling bag of troubles? yeah, would be nice indeed

I actually never got someone to reply if they use VSync or not when they game. If the machine is throttling while I benchmark both CPU and GPU at the same time, so be it - but that's not normal use case at all.

 

[iBug2]

Everyone wanted this since AMD introduced their Mante. But assuming OpenGL Vulkan is coming in future, is Metal for Mac that good news? Instead of implementing something that most of developers will use and will be able to port to any platform including OS X easily (Vulkan), Apple went with something that some to many developers might not even consider as an option due to porting difficulties.

Vulkan has at least 2 years before it gets released. By that time people will have jumped on board with Metal I think.

 

[iBug2]

Is Metal implemented into El Capitan's transitions and etc. as well? From what I've read on Apple's iOS 9 page, it seems to utilize Metal for this on iOS 9.

"The apps in iOS 9 now take advantage of Metal, making more efficient use of the CPU and GPU to deliver faster scrolling, smoother animation, and better overall performance. Email, messages, web pages, and PDFs render faster. And multitasking features on iPad feel fluid and natural."

Yes. OS X 10.11 uses Metal for all the UI elements.

 

[kaellar]

I actually never got someone to reply if they use VSync or not when they game. If the machine is throttling while I benchmark both CPU and GPU at the same time, so be it - but that's not normal use case at all.

vsync=on adds some intolerable input lag to the most of games, so it's not an option. and riMac throttles alot just under proper GPU load. nothing unusual tbh since m295x has way too high TDP to be properly cooled in iMac chassis

 

[jblagden]

vsync=on adds some intolerable input lag to the most of games, so it's not an option. and riMac throttles alot just under proper GPU load. nothing unusual tbh since m295x has way too high TDP to be properly cooled in iMac chassis

What's RiMac?

 

[kwokaaron]

Yes. OS X 10.11 uses Metal for all the UI elements.

Really? Where does it say that?